A Seder, a Fire, and a Visit

It has been such a busy week! Last Wednesday night I was invited to a seder by one of the ladies I've met at the synagogue, and it was a lot of fun—and I got to meet some more people from the area. I took Thursday off work because my mother visited Friday through Sunday and my apartment desperately needed cleaning. Somehow, I managed to get everything done, and then about an hour before my mum actually arrived, the dryer in my building caught fire. Everyone is okay, we didn't need to evacuate, and the firefighters got it put out and carried the dryer out to the lawn. The laundry room is right across the hall from my apartment, and the bottom floor at least smelled pretty smoky for a couple hours. 

The visit with my mum was great. We poked around some thrift stores and I got some new books (surprise) and, in an incredible stroke of luck, a 100% Shetland wool knit waistcoat. We also visited two of the bookstores in town, and we had lunch at a Thai restaurant with an incredible gluten free selection (it might be my new favorite restaurant!). We also checked out a forest preserve about twenty minutes from me—there's a botanical garden and museum there that we didn't look at, but once more things start growing I'll definitely head back out there to explore more. 

We also checked out a couple grocery stores in the area—one I'd popped into a couple times real quick, but hadn't really explored, and the other is a food co-op that has a ton of cool stuff. My mum loaded me up on fresh fruit and veggies, which I am very grateful for, and we also got kale and mushrooms for scrambled eggs on Sunday morning! 

I'm so glad she was able to make it out here for a long weekend. I know I just saw her in February, but that was just for a day, and I was mostly focused on getting and moving the rest of my stuff. So far this week I've been catching up on rest—usually my weekends are very laid back—but I'm starting to get back into my regular rhythm. 

In the Kitchen: Ramen Edition

So, I love cooking. I don't do it every day (or even every week) because I don't have the energy for that, but I love it. Because moving is super stressful I haven't really cooked in months, but this weekend I finally got back into it, with some delicious results.

A couple weeks ago I was stressed, and as a coping mechanism I started looking up information on making tonkotsu ramen at home. I didn't end up making it that weekend, and it got sort of shuffled to the back of my head as a fun future project. Last week while I was doing my grocery run, I planned to get stuff to make chicken broth, but didn't have any luck. What the market did have, though, was pork bones and pork belly, so Operation Homemade Tonkotsu Ramen was a go.

The broth spent all day Friday boiling—a full, rolling boil for twelve hours—and it made my apartment smell so good. The resulting broth is such a beautiful color, and it's so smooth. It's certainly the prettiest broth I've ever made.

The pork belly needed to cure for twelve hours, so I put it together at about 8pm on Friday so I could cook it late Saturday morning. It's a 50/50 salt and sugar cure, and then I cooked it at a low temperature for a couple hours. Again, my apartment smelled incredible, and the pork belly came out beautiful.

The finished ramen was such a treat—I normally just make my ramen with some homemade vegetable bouillon and a spoonful of miso, so this was a nice change, and the broth and pork belly both came out so good. I had two bowls over the weekend, and I have about six bowls' worth left of the broth and four servings of pork belly in the freezer for the future. 

In Which We Find a Dresser

Happy Wednesday, friends. I know I missed last week, but Wednesday came and I realized I didn't have anything to share with you all, but THIS week I have another apartment update!

One of the things that's been on hold has been my bedroom—I needed a dresser, and I didn't want to get my television all set up until I had one. Since moving is expensive and I have to get used to getting paid fortnightly instead of monthly, I haven't had furniture money on hand since my big Ikea order, and I was afraid that I'd have to keep waiting for a dresser. However, thanks to some dedicated Facebook checking, I found this guy just eighteen hours after he'd been put on the curb. 

It was a little bit of an adventure getting this thing back to my place. It's about half solid wood and half high-density composite, so it's definitely sturdy. I stacked the drawers in the back seat of my car and managed to walk the body of the dresser around to the trunk—it stuck out, but I didn't have too far to drive. Once I got it home, I gave it a wipe down with a microfiber rag and some cleaner, and now it's sitting nicely in its new home. 

I'd been debating where to put the bulk of my unicorn collection, but I think they look so good here! Once I was finished setting them up I realized it might have been smarter to wait until I'd found all the cords for the television, but here we are anyway. 

With the dresser acquired, my bedroom is just about done. I still need to clean up and organize some stuff and get my doll collection unpacked, but all the furniture is in place, and that's huge. 

And There Was Art

Hanging up my little raccoon and owl friends last week seems to have done the trick, and I've made a lot of progress with my wall art over the past week! This is my dining nook, and I'm so pleased with how everything looks now. There will eventually be more on the left wall, but right now I'm waiting to get a frame for my Kate Bush poster so I can see how much space that leaves. I haven't started hanging art in my bedroom or craft room yet (the craft room especially has to wait until I get the rest of my furniture in so I can see what I'm working with for wall space), but it's so nice to have some gallery walls in progress.

In a terrible turn of events, last night the battery cap on my insulin pump broke. It's a known manufacturing issue, though up until now I thought mine was safe, and I called the 24-hour tech support at eleven last night to request a replacement. It should get here sometime tomorrow, and I have permission to work from home while I'm dealing with the grind of regular blood sugar testing and frequent injections. It's certainly a pain, and I hate thinking what this is doing to my blood sugars right before I meet my new endocrinologist next week, but things happen. Lee Lee was very snuggly this morning, which is very good for morale, so hopefully she keeps pulling her weight.

Progress

I finally started unpacking some of my craft supplies this week—specifically, I've been working on my yarn stash. Usually my yarn lives in a series of clear plastic bins, but to move I ended up dumping a bunch of it into giant space bags so I could use the bins as packing boxes. Going through and reorganizing the yarn has been a task, but it's coming together. There's a limit to how much of my craft room I can unpack until I get another big bookcase, but it feels good to be making some progress.

One of my biggest hangups right now is getting my art put up. I have a large collection of wall art, and I love having my walls covered, but for some reason I'm stuck and can't quite decide where to start right now. I did take a plunge and hang up these two little wall friends next to the kitchen island this weekend, and I'm pleased with how they look. I've also (mostly) decided on locations for one of my big prints and one of my mirrors, so hopefully I'll get those hung up soon and with any luck that will kick start me into getting the rest of my art set up. 

I also had a major success this week—longtime readers of the blog might remember this sock, which I initially cast on in March of 2012(!!!!). To be fair, I did have some false starts, and I did have to ultimately rework the pattern so it would fit me comfortably, but the sock is DONE, and I am so pleased. Hopefully the second sock won't take as long. I struggle with socks—when I first started knitting I knit socks constantly, but over time I've had more and more trouble with my hands, and socks and other small-gauge projects really do a number on them, so I have to limit myself to short knitting sessions.

Books (upon books)

 I'm still catching up on rest from moving weekend, but my bookcases are finally coming together! I unpacked most of my books before going back to South Dakota so I'd have room in the craft room (Box Land) for the rest of my stuff, but only over the weekend have my shelves started to feel organized. There's still some work to do—I need some more shelves, but I don't know what form they'll take, and I'm working on figuring out how all my tchotchkes and collectibles will fit in, but having the Book Wall set up and taking shape really makes the place feel homey.

My craft room/home office is still a disaster, of course, and hopefully in a couple weeks I can source some more storage for in there. My bedroom is also a bit of a tip, but my plan for this weekend is to putter around in there and make it feel more settled.

I'm getting the itch to pick up a knitting project—it's been a while, between moving stress and an accident with a can lid that left my left hand pretty much unusable for several weeks (it's healed now, and I just have a gnarly scar and some minor nerve damage that hopefully will keep clearing up)—so I'll probably need to brave the craft boxes at some point to pull out a project.

Moving Weekend, Part 2

On Friday afternoon I dropped Lee Lee at the kennel, packed up my backpack, grabbed my trusty unicorn, and boarded a train to Chicago. My flight to South Dakota was at 9:15 on Saturday morning, so I planned to spend the night at the airport hotel, which was great planning on my part. Due to a couple of train delays and some less-than-clear directions, I didn't make it to my hotel room until almost one in the morning, and I only just managed to wake up in time to leave for my terminal as planned. 

Fortunately, my flight went much more smoothly, and we landed earlier than expected. I got to spend Saturday with my mum, and it was so nice to see her again. We ended up going to two different locations to pick up my U-Haul—the website wasn't entirely clear on which location my truck was at—but that was ultimately a very small hiccup. 

Sunday morning I got up early again to drive the truck down to my old town and load up everything from my storage unit as well as a few things I'd left with my brother. My mum and I grabbed lunch together at the cafe, and then I hit the road. The drive was less stressful than the first time I made it, but it was still a long day, and I didn't make it back to my new apartment until about 8:30. 

I'm tired and sore, and Lee Lee isn't pleased with having been left all weekend, and there are boxes everywhere and I hardly know where to start with unpacking, but the move itself is finally done. All my things are back in one place, and I can get back to settling in (as soon as I've caught up on rest).

Making a Home

I got a call two and a half hours into my Ikea delivery window on Friday letting me know that my order was delayed and would be delivered on Monday instead. Instead of spending the weekend building shelves and unpacking books, I watched some YouTube, watched a movie, and read a lot. It was a nice little rest, and when my Ikea order finally did come on Monday afternoon, I was raring to go. I built the two Kallax units that I got for my bedroom and two of the Billys for the living room on Monday, and then I built the last two living room Billys last night.

Now, I know that there's no such thing as a level floor or a straight wall. However, I didn't realize exactly how uneven my floors and walls are here until I tried lining my Billys up along the wall. I'd initially planned for them to all be flush against each other, but that wasn't going to happen. I'm okay with the placement now (I don't love having little gaps in between them, but there's no other safe option), and I think they'll look fine once they're filled with books and treasures. I'm hoping to get a bunch of books unpacked this week and start organizing the shelves, because I need to make space in the craft room (where all the full boxes live) for the rest of my stuff that's coming from South Dakota this weekend.

I didn't really bring much furniture with me from South Dakota—most of what I had was cheap, or had been picked up for free, so aside from my armchair and my papasan and a few small pieces with sentimental value, I've been looking for and picking up all new furniture. A couple weeks ago I found this adorable little dining set on Facebook Marketplace—I knew I wanted a small dining set, and I really wanted something with a drop leaf that could seat at least four people (I dream of making friends here and hosting brunch). This little table is perfect. I love the formica top, and the chairs it came with are great. My plan is to get a couple of folding chairs from Ikea to have enough seating for my future brunch parties, but that can wait. 

The rug is a vintage wool rug from Turkey, and I adore it. I really wanted a rug to define the dining nook, and I'm so pleased with how it ties the space together. Eventually there will be another little buffet for more storage along that back wall (currently it's acting as my dresser, but eventually I'll get a proper, larger dresser for my clothes) and I'll be able to properly display my vintage pyrex and my antique punch bowl. (The bike is also not living in the dining nook full-time; there will eventually be a rack to stand it up in the craft room, once everything is unpacked and there's room for me to get/set up a rack for it.)

This weekend is going to be busy—I fly out to South Dakota early Saturday morning, and on Sunday we'll start early getting the Uhaul loaded so I can make the drive back. Back when I made my initial drive out here, it took me almost exactly eleven hours from getting in the car to parking at my new apartment, but that was just with my (very full) car, so I'm anticipating the drive on Sunday to take a little bit longer. It will be so nice to have the rest of my stuff here, though. Most of my craft supplies are still in South Dakota, as well as my entire liquor collection and my tv, and it will feel really good to have everything moved.

It's Really Been a Year

Hi, friends. It's been a while, hasn't it? 

The past year was a bit of a doozy. Since we've last visited, I finished library school, spent many months trying to recover from working and going to grad school at the same time, and spent almost a year to the day applying for jobs. 

2022 was rough, y'all. It was all I could do to just keep going. I didn't write much, I didn't knit much, and since we last met I managed to release just one pattern (Ravelry Link) (Payhip Link). At the beginning of last year, I had big aspirations: I was going to recover from grad school quickly, dive back into writing and designing and making full-throttle, I was going to get a fantastic new job and move to Minnesota to be near my bestie. And then none of that really happened.

In November I applied for a job on a whim. I was burnt out on job hunting, and this job was outside of my search parameters, and I was so tired and frustrated that I decided to just send in my resume. And then six days later I was offered the job. 

Almost one month ago to the day I packed up my car and drove myself, Lee Lee, the goldfish, and all 57 of my plants to Illinois to start this new adventure. It's been a wild couple of months, and it's still really stressful—I'm surrounded by boxes and piles of stuff, I need to make one more trip back to South Dakota to get the rest of my stuff, I'm learning a brand-new job and a brand-new city and getting used to living in a new apartment that feels so very different from anywhere I've lived before. 

It's been an adventure (and will continue to be one as I continue settling in!) and sometimes I still can't quite believe that I did it. Bit by bit, my new apartment is starting to feel like home—I have a bed, finally, and this week I'll get the first batch of bookcases so I can start unpacking some of the book and tchotchke boxes, and I'm slowly getting used to navigating the new kitchen. I've gone on little adventures to the winter farmer's market, the public library, and some thrift stores to start learning the area, and I'm starting to get a feel for my job. 

It's good to be back, friends, and I hope that in 2023 we'll have lots to share with each other here. 

Checking In

Hello, friends! I'm here with my promised monthly check-in, and I can't believe January's gone and we're almost halfway through February already.

I released two patterns that I worked on throughout last year, and I currently don't have any designs in progress. I'm not sure how I feel about that—on the one hand, it's nice to have that pressure taken off me, but on the other hand, I've been working on some design or other straight through since 2014, so it's definitely a change.

Classes have started, and I think it's going to be a good semester. It doesn't look like any of my classes will be too too difficult or onerous, which is a relief—I don't have major projects in two of my three classes, and so far my reading load is about half of what it's been in past semesters. I have to do my graduation portfolio this semester, too, which I'm not really looking forward to, but I've come this far, so I'm sure I'll get through it just fine.

One thing I finally did this month, after putting it off for years was sandwich my vintage quilt top. I got this at a church bazaar back in 2014 (I think?) and I've been seriously meaning to sandwich it since I moved into my apartment. For whatever reason, it just never was a priority when I had the time to do it, but a couple weeks ago I decided to go for it. I haven't been knitting as much during my classes as I thought I would before I started library school, and it's really good for my mental health for me to make things with my hands. 

This quilt top isn't perfect—there are crooked bits, and the fabrics are all different weights, so some have stretched out more than others—and that gives me a lot of freedom to not worry about quilting it perfectly. I can just enjoy the process of stitching and not think at all about how even or straight my stitches are. I've really been enjoying being able to just make something without putting any pressure on myself to make it perfect, or even good. No matter how messily it's stitched, as I'm sitting in class or watching YouTube, it will be functional, and I'm sure Lee Lee will fight me for possession of it when it's done. 

There's probably something there about the freedom of doing things badly—even intentionally doing things badly. Sure, there's a lot of satisfaction surrounding a perfectly executed project, but right now I'm really loving the process of stitching without any pressure to make it look nice.